1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a textile product such as raw fiber, yarn, fabric, and end product which bears one or more colors on its surface.
2. Description of the Related Art
Heretofore, the coloring of textile products has been only possible with dyes or pigments, and the coloring with dyes or pigments has a problem with it requiring many steps and a large amount of water.
With this in mind, the present inventors invented a method for coloring a textile product with a metal deposited on the fiber surface by sputtering. This method is very useful for the coloring of textile products because it is able to produce any color, especially metallic color. Unfortunately, most metals have achromatic colors and metal compounds are necessary where chromatic colors are desirable. To make matters worse, the sputtering of metal compounds is usually slow in film forming. This means that sputtering takes a longer time to form a deposit film thick enough to hide the color of the substrate fiber. This holds true of the case where titanium nitride is deposited to impart a bright golden color to the fiber. In this case the prolonged sputtering generates heat and changes of a surface of the titanium nitride that changes the composition of the titanium nitride, with the result that the deposited film takes on a reddish color rather than a desired golden color. In other words, the above-mentioned sputtering process has a very narrow latitude in optimum conditions.